Scenes from the Underworld
by BeeInYourBonnet
Summary: Satine and Christian were not the only doomed lovers in the Moulin Rogue. Nini never got her fairytale ending either...


_**Disclaimer:** The Moulin Rogue, Nini, and my dear Argentinean are all owned by those rich folks in Hollywood. I own nothing. Really._

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Looking back on her childhood, Nini Legs-in-the-Air realised that she had never truly loved her mother.  
  
There was no guilt in this knowledge - the feeling had most likely been mutual - but even if she could not love her mother, she had certainly learnt a great deal from her. By her mother's example, she learnt to value herself by an hourly rate. She learnt to hurt others before they could hurt her, to hate the world for its unfairness, and to hide her weaknesses behind a painted snarl. The lessons were never easy, but they helped her to survive where others had not.  
  
There was one lesson in particular, however, that would be forever imprinted on Nini's consciousness.  
  
It had been a grey and dreary morning. The London pavements were slick with the previous night's rain, and a dirty yellow smog was creeping like a phantom through the terraced streets. She had found her mother huddled in the cobbled ally-way behind their home. The older woman was sobbing bitterly into a bottle of watered-down gin, her lip split and oozing scarlet. The tell-tale brand of a hand-print had been branded in purple across her cheek. Nini had been young, but she had instantly known what must have happened to her.  
  
After all, working the streets was a dangerous business.  
  
At first her mother had failed to react to Nini's presence. She held her head in her hand and moaned, makeup-streaked tears streaming down her face. Nini remembered feeling no pity for her...only a vague sense of contempt. As far as she was concerned, the stupid slag had brought it on herself.  
  
Then, finally, the hunched apparition had stirred. She turned her face away to hide her injuries, bruise swollen lips struggling to form words.  
  
"There ain't no fairytale endings for the likes of you an' me, Nini my darlin'," she slurred drunkenly, raising the bottle and taking a long swig. "Never forget that."

...And she never had.

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It was a lesson that she always remembered - even years after she had abandoned the East-End for the bright lights of Paris - and now, over a decade later, she found herself remembering her mother's words of jaded wisdom as she watched _him_ from across the room.  
  
Nini rocked uneasily on her too-high-heels, chewing on her lower lip. The air was thick with stale sweat and floor polish, a pale mist of nicotine smoke hanging like a veil above the cluster of tables. The others had gone only minutes before – the hollow silence still throbbing with the echoes of their presence – and Nini was alone.  
  
Alone with him.  
  
They called him The Argentinean. Nobody knew whether or not he had a real name...in truth, nobody cared. But in the realm of the Moulin Rogue – this strange Parisian underworld where a person's worth was measured in terms of novelty value – his uniqueness as a South American had effectively labelled him for life.  
  
He was slumped unconscious over a table, his head twisted at what looked like a painfully awkward angle. A half-empty bottle of absinthe was set out before him, but Nini knew that his current state had little to do with intoxication. Narcolepsy was a cruel illness, and – from the looks of things – he was locked in its bleak thrall.  
  
She wanted to go to him, but something held him back.  
  
Satine was dead, and Christian might as well have been. They had dared to break the rules by flaunting their love, and the price they had paid had been heavy. Nini had known that it would happen, of course, but still...a part of her had been disappointed. Deep down, beneath the layers of cynicism and doubt, she had almost wanted them to get away with it. She had wanted Love to conquer all.  
  
She had wanted to believe in fairytale endings again.  
  
But, once again, her mother had been proved right, and she hated her for it.  
  
Almost uncertainly, she made her way across the empty dance floor, her heels clicking a tattoo against the floor-boards. He remained frozen and tense, disturbingly corpse-like. Something uncomfortable tightened in her throat then...not that she was worried about him, of course. Worrying would mean feeling something greater than indifference, and that was something that she was not yet willing to admit too.  
  
If the Moulin Rogue had destroyed Satine and Christian, what chance did a Diamond Dog and her Argentinean stand?  
  
She paused at his table, then leaned forward, brushing her fingers lightly through his hair. It was the only contact that she allowed herself.  
  
"There ain't no fairytale endings for the likes of you an' me, my darlin'," she murmured, surprised at the tremor in her own voice. "But sometimes...God, sometimes...I wish that there were."  
  
Then, blinking at a sudden heat behind her eyelids, she turned and walked away...leaving the Argentinean alone in the ravine of his sickness. 


End file.
